Before you can grasp a fictional character’s nuances, idiosyncrasies, and convictions like you can with a person in real life, it takes a while on the silver screen. In TDK, most viewers have a notion of the backstory, but may not understand the grit and dark aura that makes up Frank Miller’s reinvention of Batman.
The first scenes of the movie removes any doubt about the brutality of the film – as well as all the scenes of implied gore. You get everything from a realistic hero and his followers to the crazed maniac who feeds off of the hero to make his own “living.” The living media, the city’s vitriolic emotions, and the naive ambition of the DA, Harvey Dent (an underrated role played by Aaron Eckhart in light of Heath Ledger’s The Joker).
The movie is long, roughly two and a half hours, and has chewy themes – dialogue that characterize and establish points of reason, descent into madness etc. It’s pretty good, but not mindless, and not necessarily escapist cinema that we all wearily trudge to the movies for.
The Joker’s performance was creepy, well – acted, and understandably sensational. Bale played Batman well, but could have been better…I don’t know…But Eckhart played his character very well, and undeniably reasonable at the end.
I give it an 8 out of 10.
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The Wackness takes place in the 90’s and its about this semi-shy, laid-back, high school drug dealer named Luke who tries to find some way to cure the depression from his parents’ fights, and slow descent into poverty. He has a psychologist, played very well by Ben Kingsley, who gives treatment in exchange for marijuana.
They really transform in this movie…Kingsley’s flawed character comes through magnificently throughout the end, and Luke transforms as he falles in love with his psychologist’s daughter. The friendship, the relationships really do work on screen – is realistic, hypocritical, and everything you want it to be when it gets to the end. Ben Kingsley does a really good job, and so does Josh Peck.
I give this movie a 7 out of 10.
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